Create a Social Media Calendar for Your Business

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Social media is an effective marketing and relationship building tool for many businesses. If it is part of your marketing strategy, you need a social media calendar to get the most from your effort.

With a calendar, you organize and plan your content, communicate timely events, and align your social media posts with other business initiatives. Creating a social media calendar helps you produce consistent, well-timed, quality posts that serve both your audience and your business.

Here are three factors to consider when creating a social media calendar.

Your Content and Goals

Your social media calendar should account for your existing and planned content. Make an inventory so you can plan an effective mix.

Common types of shareable content include:

  • News and events
  • Quotes and inspiration
  • Blog posts
  • Promotions
  • Questions and answers

Be sure to tag each piece of content with the goal(s) that each can support. This will help you to share content in a way that builds impact.

With an inventory you can plan for a mix suited to your audience and business goals. You’ll be better able to build up to special events and announcements as well as target specific objectives.

Your Audience

Offering great content is also about timing. When does your audience want your content? You need to know this to plan your calendar.

Some audiences are 9-5, Monday to Friday types. Others are more available on weekends or specific times of the day.

Look at your analytics to see when you are getting the most engagement. Talk to your customers to get their preferences. You can also get insights from national data sources like the Pew Research Center Social Media Fact Sheet.

Your Social Channels

You may be tempted to share the same content across all social channels. Don’t. You will want to present your content in a way that is effective for each channel.

This means using images, content and timing that is specific to each channel. So, you will need to research the optimal approach for each channel you plan to use.

Plan your social media calendar in a way that maximizes the potential impact on each channel.

Is your website a party or a snoozefest?

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Guest Post by Natalie Rose, NOVA Web Group

A website is a great place to tell the story of your business, share information, and engage with your audience. Look at your website from the visitor’s perspective – does it provide an interesting and engaging experience or is it boring?

There are a lot of places to get information online. People gravitate to the places that provide what they are looking for as well as a pleasant experience. That can be your website or someplace else. Don’t give your competitors an edge by ignoring your user experience.

Website Design Considerations

What’s the first impression when someone arrives at your site? It is visually interesting? Does it draw them in to see more? A great visual design attracts attention without providing visual overload. It draws visitors into the site to experience more.

User Focused Content

Does your content provide the information that users want? Too often, we get caught up in telling people what we want to say and ignore what they want.

Make sure your content speaks to the needs and interests of your target audience, using words they use. No one is interested in figuring out your corporate speak!

Don’t ignore questions and information that you know are on people’s minds. If you don’t address common concerns, people will find the information elsewhere (and you will have no control over that message!)

Allow Visitors to Connect

Does your website let people connect with you? This can be a contact form, an email address and/or a phone number. It can also be links to your social media sites if you offer expanded content there and actively engage with people who post and comment.

Great sites also let people sign up to receive more information on an ongoing basis. Also popular for customer-service oriented sites is a chat feature that invites visitors to connect in real time.

The best way to connect depends on your business and your audience. The good news is that there are many great options.

Amp Up Engagement

Take a fresh look at your website with the goal of engaging your target audience. Evaluate your website from the visitor’s perspective. Make sure it measures up to the experience you offer online as well as to what competitors offer.

Who Is Online?

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Think just about everyone is online, using the internet and social media? And, that we all have smartphones? Actually, the majority do, but thinking we ALL do is a mistake. This according to the latest data on who is online worldwide from Pew.

Who Is Online in the United States

  • 90% of people report using the internet at least occasionally, via computer or smartphone
  • 84% of people 50 and older use the internet at least occasionally, 98% of people age 30-49 and 100% of people age 18-29
  • In general, the higher a person’s level of education and income, the more likely they are to be online
  • 81% have a smartphone
  • 73% use social media (56% o people 50 and over, 84% of people age 30-49 and 91% of people age 18-29)

The Pew analysis focused on internet, social media and mobile phone use in 34 countries. Data was drawn from a Pew Research Center survey conducted across 34 countries from May 13 to Oct. 2, 2019, totaling 38,426 respondents. Data on internet and mobile phone usage for the United States is from a Center survey of 1,502 respondents conducted Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2019.

What People Do Online

What Do People Do Online?